More than 1,000 cases of sexual violence have been reported since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with approximately 90% of the perpetrators identified as Russian soldiers, according to a United Nations investigation.
On September 20, EuroNews reported that the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released a 20-page report analyzing 1,004 incidents of war-related sexual violence reported from February 2022 to July 2023, condemning them as "shocking torture and threats, coercion."
The report is based on testimonies from hundreds of victims and court documents.
According to the report, the majority of victims were male prisoners held in Russian detention facilities. However, it also found that civilian women and children in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine suffered severe abuses.
Victims ranged in age from 4 to 82 years old, and 89% of the perpetrators were identified as Russian military personnel.
A Ukrainian woman from the Zaporizhzhia region was repeatedly raped after being deceived by a Russian soldier's false promise to treat her detained husband well.
Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, stated, "The overwhelming majority of sexual violence incidents involve Russian forces," urging Russia to take concrete and effective measures to protect civilians and prisoners of war.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry described the report as evidence of the stark scale of systematic human rights violations perpetrated by Russia.
Russia officially withdrew from the European Convention on Torture Prevention in September of last year. However, as a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture and with its constitution prohibiting torture, it is likely to face international criticism.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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